Switching from opioids to medical marijuana was a personal triumph for a 27-year-old Alberta woman living with endometriosis.

But Dana, whose real name Metro is withholding to protect her identity, says though the drug gave her a new life, it has only caused problems with her employers.

“I thought that once I got a prescription and I was off of the opiates, and I was a better worker and a more reliable worker, I would be treated like the tax paying, law abiding adult that I am,” she said.

Instead, “I am being treated like a hardened criminal and I am tired of it,” she said.

Dana lives in the town of Valleyview, northwest of Edmonton. She said she was fired from a private contract job at an Alberta Registry after disclosing she uses medical marijuana.

The mother of one feels her new employer — at a Valleyview hospital, where she works in patient intake — is discriminating against her for the same reason.